What an amazing trip! We started from home on July 28 and didn't get back until August 4. Along the way we hiked the AT in three states, J won first place in public speaking at her last Southern Regionals 4H Championship, and we spent three days exploring (and sweating!) in New Orleans. What memories!
The adventure began early on a Sunday morning with a long drive up I64 and onto I81. After four hours or so, we were leaving Virginia behind and were into Tennessee. The weather was unseasonably cool and comfortable throughout Virginia and into Tennessee.
We drove through the very unappealing town of Sevierville--good grief, remind me NEVER to go to Las Vegas--and breathed a sigh of relief when we began ascending into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Look at the cute tourists!
The views going up the mountain were lovely, and there were plenty of spots to stop and gawk.
Once we arrived at the parking area for Clingman's Dome, I realized this wasn't exactly my kind of hike, The parking area looked more like King's Dominon's lot than any hiking place I'd ever seen. Tons of cars, kids, strollers, Grandmas, and sullen teens in flip flops. Oh wait, that's my kid! (Just joking).
Clingman's Dome is the tallest mountain east of the Mississippi, and some one figured they could make a buck by turning it into a tourist trap. So they built a macadam road up to the top, and then they built an observation tower with a concrete ramp that circles up to it.
It's a very, very STEEP road, but a road nonetheless.
However, it does provide access to the AT, so it was on our list as our visit for Tennessee. It's also where the Mountains-To-Sea Trail begins...and that's now on my bucket list for sometime in the future when we've finished the AT quest.
Oh look, we found the AT sign.
This is the ramp up to the top of the observation tower. It's not that hard to get up to the top, despite the grade--you just kind of get dragged along by the sea of humanity. Solitude scale? HAH!
The view at the top is spectacular, though.
Once we'd finished looking around at mountains, mountains, and more mountains, we descended like salmon swimming upstream, and quickly took ourselves down the spur trail to the AT.
Ahhhhhhhhhhh, that's more like it. There were only a few other people down in the woods on the AT, as opposed to several hundred up on the paved path. J preferred to stay up there and rest for a bit, so it was just us and a couple of other hikers.
One of them was kind enough to shoot a joint picture of us.
There is one spot on the AT that you can just see through the trees up to the observation tower way above. That was pretty cool.
So--Tennessee--CHECK! We bought a few souvenirs and a sticker for the car at the ranger shop, and we headed back out on the road. Next stop, Nantahala Outdoor Center in Wesser, North Carolina!
On our way down the other side of the mountain, we drove through Cherokee, North Carolina. They have shop after shop of Indian crafts, beautifully painted bears every where, and the Museum of the Cherokee Indian.
How I wish I'd had time to stop and explore.
But the day was getting late, and dinnertime was rapidly approaching. We were headed for the NOC and wanted to be sure to get there before it closed at 8:00.
The Nantahala Outdoor Center, or "NOC", as those of us who like to pretend we know stuff call it, is the most amazing place on earth for a hiker/kayaker. It's built on either side of the end of the Nantahala River and has three restaurants, an outfitter, a general store, cabins, ziplines, rafting, camping, and cabins. Oh, and the AT passes right through the middle of it.
Not kidding. It goes over the bridge between the restaurant and outfitter.
The river is man made and has been worked on to create interesting kayaking. It was used in the last summer Olympics for the kayak courses!
Dave had scoped out the restaurants in advance and chosen River's End for dinner. It's right on the river, so the view is simply unreal.
This is from our table on the deck. The weather was still comfortably cool and glorious, so we ate outside.
Watching the rafters coming in made us re-evaluate our decision to skip rafting. But...as Dave pointed out, the Nantahala is pretty boring as whitewater goes, and we didn't have time for one of the longer trips on the Ocoee or Hiawassee. So we stuck with the original plan to skip it...this trip.
While we waited for our dinners to arrive, Dave and I went back out to the bridge since I'd never gotten my picture taken.
While Dave was taking my picture, some bikers standing nearby said "Let us take one of both of you, man! What are you, rafters? Ohhhhhh, hikers. Cool!"
Dinner was wonderful, as was the craft beer I washed it down with. This hiking stuff is changing me in interesting ways!
After dinner we wandered some more, shopped in the outfitter's some more, and took some more shots of the river and the kayak course. It looked...scary.
Dinner was so good, and the hotel was so near, that we came back the next morning for breakfast before we headed to Georgia.
Those sweet potato pancakes were surprisingly delicious.
As we drove out the other way, we saw some actual rapids and drops on the part that the rafters ride.
And...we wished once again we maybe might have done some rafting while we were there. Next time! I swear, we add things to the bucket list faster than we knock them off.
North Carolina--CHECK! Next stop, SPRINGER MOUNTAIN!!
The drive to Springer was...interesting. First of all, it's literally in the middle of nowhere. We knew in advance that the last several miles of the trip would be up the mountain on a forestry road. What we didn't really know is that there was literally nothing--NO THING--anywhere for about 15 miles before we even got there. Unfortunately, I didn't notice quite how low we were on gas until we were well into the "nothing" part.
Don't worry, we didn't run out. But we did waste an hour or so backtracking to the nearest gas station to fill up.
This is the turn off from paved road to FS Road 42. Not that there was much civilization on the paved road, either.
We made it up the forest service road and found the parking lot. Dave was about as pleased as one man can be that all his research paid off so nicely. Starting from this parking lot instead of Amicalola State Park turns an 8-mile round trip hike into a 2-mile up and back. No way we had time for the 8 miles so this was the only way to make it happen.
Springer Mountain is the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. If Katahdin is is Mecca, then Springer Mountain is Medina.
Even J was all smiles. Springer Mountain! I was so, so excited.
It's a mountain, so, ya know. Up. But it was a very easy up--the steps were mostly small, the rocks were very solid and good stepping. It was not a difficult hike in the least. Sky Meadows, Grayson Highlands, Crabtree, and Humpback were all much harder. We laughed at ourselves for all the worrying we did--"Georgia! In late July! We're going to die!"--and all that training sure paid off. Of course, it was about 15 degrees cooler than we expected it to be. Thank goodness!
We didn't even carry full packs--just the small camelbacks. with a couple of pocket snacks. It was under a mile each way, for goodness sakes.
It was a very pretty hike, with lots of wildlife, flora, and some fun rock formations. I like rocks, when I'm not climbing them every step.
There is a 50 mile trail memorializing Benton MacKaye that joins the AT here. It's blazed with a white diamond, which I found very fitting.
We came up into a clearing with a lovely view, and--yowza--this is it!
The southern terminus of the AT. I was standing on it. This rock is very large, and around the back of it they've dug out a space and put in a metal box with the log inside.
J was quite triumphant. It was, after all, her who realized where we were standing.
Dave's boots this time. How long had I looked forward to seeing this sign? And we were finally there!
North, toward Maine.
Springer Mountain, Georgia--CHECK! And with this under our belts, the AT Quest is officially half done. We have hiked in every state from Georgia to Maryland. Wow.
After we hiked back down Springer, I really wanted to go over to Amicalola to get a sticker for the car and probably...ok, definitely a Tshirt. I looked up the address and plugged it into the GPS...
and we spent the next hour driving around on people's farms and up gravel roads into the woods. Literally. I kid you not.
We finally stopped at a place I cannot adequately describe. It was the epitome of backwoods country store.
There was a chicken scratching around in front and not another building within miles. It was off the side of the gravel road and the only vehicle in front was a John Deere Gator.
Dave went in to ask Jim Bob directions and came back out shaking his head. He kept mumbling "You wan' the loooooooong waaaaaaaaaaay or the shorrrrrrrr' waaaaaaay?" to himself. At any rate, we established we needed to find Rt 52, so I went looking for that. It took a couple of false tries--the GPS still really wanted us to go straight up over whatever mountain this was in between us and Amicalola--but eventually, we got there.
Amicalola is lovely, and if we'd had more time I would have enjoyed exploring it. There are waterfalls there, obviously, and apparently you climb a lot of steps to get up to them. We wondered if we had chosen to do the 8-mile up and back, would those steps have been part of that hike? If so we were very glad we went the other way.
We bought our sticker and Tshirts and went back to the car. We stowed our camelbacks, trekking poles, and hiking boots and headed for Bremen, Georgia and our hotel for the night. With that, we transformed ourselves into 4H parents. For the next two days, we weren't cool hiker/kayakers. We were competition support staff.
J put on the performance of her life and took first place in public speaking, as I mentioned above. What a superb accomplishment!
Of course, SHE was more excited about...this.
With her blue ribbon and medal in hand. we went to New Orleans to be tourists for a couple of days. We visited the aquarium, the French quarter, Café du Monde, St. Louis Cathedral, took a carriage ride, ate too much, and finished with a quick visit to Marie Laveau's grave.
Then it was a hard, straight drive home in two days. We were ever so grateful to see our little farm at the end, but it was a fabulous adventure!
